The 2010 MAZDASPEED 3 PROJECT
I MISS SMALL CARS
Going from a 2001 Durango to a 2010 MazdaSpeed3 was a welcome change.The first new car I ever bought - 6 speed, turbocharged, silly looking and a bonkers amount of front-wheel-drive power. The outside of this car had a boy-racer aggressive look to it with a big goofy smile on the front. Right up my alley. This was a car I wouldn't have to modify all too much and still be able to enjoy driving it, all the while adding a little bit of my own flare to it to make it just different enough from everyone else's Speed3.
ZOOM ZOOM
I'm a sucker for a good advertising campaign and at the time, it was Zoom Zoom. Mazda has always had a reputation for building 'drivers cars.' Not super luxurious, not cheaply made, somewhere in the middle. That's why the Miata/MX5 is still revered today as the most well-balanced sports car around; they're just fun. The Speed3 was no different, albeit a different form factor and weight distribution.
Peoples' relationship with their Speed3's is a tumultuous one. The 2nd generation gets a bad rap for a couple reasons - it got a facelift for 2010 and looks 'ricey', and people called the Gen2 a GenPu because the OG purists thought it was ugly. But the real point of issue is the massive amount of torque steer this car has. Putting power to it without both hands firmly on the wheel is a recipe for disaster, because it reefs the hell out of the steering wheel. This was probably the most common complaint about the car - love it or hate it. Lastly, heat soak for the inter-cooler. Admittedly, the engine bay design was not perfect - top-mount inter-coolers seem counterintuitive; heat from the engine bay would help counteract the active cool air coming in via the newly-added but functional hood scoop, degrading performance even if only slightly.
My opinion of the car was this - I loved the torque steer. I embraced it. Every time I drove the car, it was like getting into a spat with a loved one where you say things you don't mean, get mad at each other and uncomfortably hash it out over time. Every single time I pressed hard on the gas pedal, the car fought back, and prolonged periods of aggressive driving was a fantastic forearm workout. I will admit the torque steer was rough - if you didn't have your hands on the wheel, you're in the ditch 100% of the time. There was so much raw, unrefined over-engineered power at the front wheels it just felt magnificent. The wheel hop was so barbaric the rearview mirror would flop around and you'd have to re-adjust it after a hard pull. I developed an abusive relationship with that car, and it worked both ways. I owned this car for 2 years before selling it in exchange for a Grand Cherokee Altitude Edition - I had kids on the way and had to be a responsible adult. It was hard to drive off the lot and put it in my rearview. I still think about this car all the time. I really loved it.
15 MINUTES OF FAME
Am I famous yet? Only in my mind. For a while I subscribed to the now defunct Super Street Magazine - an ad-chocked monthly magazine filled with gaudy imported cars, huge spoilers, overkill turbos and scantily clad women. I probably don't have to write this - but it was awesome. So awesome in fact, I submitted my car to see if they'd publish a picture of it. A few weeks went by, maybe even months. I didn't hear a word from Super Street. Then I got a the latest release in the mail, the March 2011 edition. I flipped through just as I did every month. And then - to my surprise - there it was. My Speed3. To my delight, I barely even got made fun of! More than I could say about poor Ingazio Falcone.
UPGRADES
I wasn't really rolling in cash when I owned this car, and upgrades weren't super highly available at the time so it was pretty basic. A K&N air intake was the first thing I did. Interestingly though - the performance boost for a simple intake upgrade was significant for this car. Stock, they were rated at 263HP and 280 lb-ft of torque. The K&N Typhoon intake promised an additional 25.68HP, bringing the car to a potential 288HP - that is significant for an intake upgrade. Plus, it sounded cool.
Aside from that, I went with a now very much outdated set of Konig Zero 18" wheels and summer tires. The wheels had a red ring around them, and helped to steer me in the direction of my vinyl application plans. Red-rimmed wheels are dumb now, I know that. But at the time, they were totally in.
As with my Focus, I also added a set of RallyArmor mudflaps to help protect the wheel wells from getting damaged or dinged up, and add a rally-car look to the vehicle. I installed a short-throw shift kit which I promptly removed because I hated it, and an upgraded rear motor mount which shook the living hell out of the car when idling with the A/C on.
Lastly, I experimented with vinyl on this car a lot. I played with pin striping, decal design, matte black subtle changes, the works. I would add and remove different designs every few months. At one point, and the embarrassing pinnacle of my Speed3 ownership, I was published in SuperStreet Magazine with a photo of my Tron car design.